Part 23

At last we came out into the King City highway and paused a moment to look ourselves over. The car was plastered with sand and mire from stem to stern; tires had suffered sadly from the rocky bottoms of the streams, and a front spring was broken. We agreed that crossing from Coalinga to King City was an experience one would hardly care to repeat except under stringent necessity.

The run to King City, after we had left the hills, was easy, enabling us to make up somewhat for the time consumed in crossing the range. A flock of more than two thousand sheep, driven along the highway, impeded our progress for half an hour and served to remind us of one of the great industries of the Salinas Valley.

A little foraging about King City provided a passable luncheon, which we ate under one of the mighty oaks at the foot of Jolon grade. In repassing this road, we were more than ever impressed with the beauty of the trees; thousands of ancient oaks dotted the landscape on either hand, some standing in solitary majesty and others clustered in picturesque groups. Dutton's Hotel at Jolon is nearly a century old, portions of it dating from mission days, and the proprietor is an enthusiast on historic California, having collected a goodly number of old-time relics in a little museum just across the road from the inn. Most of these came from San Antonio and the inn-keeper is anxiously looking forward to the day when he can return these treasures to the restored mission—though this, alas, does not appear to be in the near future.

It was to visit this ruin, which we missed on our northward trip, that we crossed the desert and mountains from Fresno to King City. It is one of the remotest and loneliest of the chain, the nearest railway station being King City, forty miles away. It stands six miles west of Jolon and we followed a rutty trail, deep with fine, yellow dust which rolled in strangling clouds from our wheels. But a lovely country on either hand glimmered through the dust haze, and in the pleasantest spot at the head of the wide valley stood the brown old ruin of San Antonio Mission. Behind it towered the high blue peaks of the Santa Lucias, the only barrier remaining between the valley and the sea, while the windowless, burnt-brick fachada fronted upon a wide meadowland, dotted with glorious oaks and gnarled old willows, stretching away to the dim outlines of the distant hills.

It was one of the most delightful sites we had yet seen, and the ruin had a certain melancholy picturesqueness peculiar to it alone. Like so many of its contemporaries, it suffered severely from earthquakes; about twenty-five years ago the roof fell and the shattered walls would soon have followed had not an enthusiastic lover of the old order of things—a gentleman of Spanish descent residing near Jolon—undertaken at his own time and expense to clear away the debris and protect the ruin against farther onslaught of the weather. A shingle roof was built covering the entire church and the original tiles were piled inside. The fachada, built of burnt brick, with three entrances and three belfries, is one of the most charming bits of mission architecture still remaining and is happily almost intact. Portions of the long cloisters are still standing—enough to furnish the motif for a complete restoration, and with adequate funds it would not be a difficult matter to restore San Antonio Mission Church to its former state.

Inside, the church was quite denuded; birds and squirrels had found a convenient home and flitted or scampered about as we entered. A huge gray owl flapped heavily out of an empty window and everything combined to impress upon us the loneliness and isolation of this once rich and prosperous mission. In one corner we descried the huge cast-iron community pot which might hold a hundred or two gallons and which once contained food for the unmarried folk among the Indians—the married had to do their own cooking. Inside the dismantled chancel were the graves of the first four missionaries of San Antonio, still the objects of reverent remembrance by the only Indian family of the vicinity.

Out of the church we came into the ancient patio, marked by crumbling arches and shapeless piles of adobe. Here a few scraggly rose bushes—descendants of those which once ornamented the garden of the padres—bloomed in neglected corners, and two old olives still defied time and weather. It was a quiet spot; its silence and loneliness were almost oppressive; but we soon heard sounds from beyond the wall and found two Mexicans digging a grave, for burials are still made in the old cemetery. A little way to the rear San Antonio Creek—now a trickling thread of water—winds through a fringe of ancient willows, and cattle were pasturing quietly in the shade. One can not escape the spell of the ruin and its surroundings. It is no wonder that an appreciative historian of the California missions declares that San Antonio appeals to him as do none of its rivals, that—"There is a pathetic dignity about the ruin, an unexpressed claim for sympathy in the perfect solitude of the place that is almost overpowering. It stands out in the fields alone, deserted, forgotten." True, he wrote before the coming of the motor, which is doing something to rescue San Antonio Mission from complete oblivion; but the Mexican grave-digger said that even motor visitors were not frequent. Evidently many of the wayfarers on El Camino Real do not consider the twelve-mile detour worth while; but we would count ourselves well repaid had it consumed an entire day instead of an hour or two. If San Gabriel and Dolores may be compared as tourist shrines to Melrose and Dryburgh, surely San Antonio may vie in sentiment and charm with some of the out-of-the-way and lesser-known abbeys of Britain such as Glenluce or Calder. In this quiet and isolated spot there is hardly field for it as a church institution and restoration will have to be done by individuals or by the state. It would be a pity to allow this delightful example of early mission architecture to fall into the hopeless ruin of Soledad or La Purisima.

San Antonio has the added charm of being one of the oldest of the California missions. It was the third of the series, its foundation closely following that of Monterey. Serra himself, assisted by Pieras and Sitjar, conducted the ceremonies of consecration which took place July 14, 1771. One lone Indian was present on the occasion, but others were brought in before the day closed and the relations of priest and natives were harmonious from the start. San Antonio throughout its career was remarkably free from strife and trouble; the natives were industrious and peaceful and gladly joined in the work of building, and tilling the soil. The first church was completed two years after the foundation, and as late as 1787 was regarded as the best in California. The present church was begun in 1810 and dedicated a few years later. It is of adobe excepting the fachada of burnt brick, whose perfect condition makes us regret that the whole mission could not have been built of the same enduring material. The greatest Indian population was thirteen hundred and nine in 1805, which had declined to two hundred and seventy in 1834, the year of secularization. In 1843 the mission was restored to the church and nominally occupied until about forty years ago. At that time the buildings were in a fair state and the present ruin was wrought chiefly by earthquake.

Pausing a moment for one more survey of the lovely valley and with a lingering look at the romantic old ruin over which the shadows of evening were beginning to lower, we were away for Paso Robles, which we reached before nightfall.

We retraced our way over El Camino Real the following morning as far as Santa Margarita, from whence we diverged to the coast road. For on our outward journey we had missed another of the missions—La Purisima, situated a few miles from Lompoc. The road which we followed out of Santa Margarita was unmercifully rough, and a fierce wind from the sea blinded us with clouds of dust and sand. We were glad when we reached the shelter of the giant hills, just beyond which lay the object of our pilgrimage. The ascent seemed almost interminable; the yellow road swept along the hillsides, rising steadily in long loops which we could see winding downward as we looked back from the summit. The grade was not heavy, but continuous; the descent was shorter and steeper and we dropped quickly into the pleasant valley of the Santa Ynez, where stands the isolated village of Lompoc.

A few miles out of the town we beheld the object of our search—the lonely ruin of La Purisima Concepcion, standing at some distance from the highroad, surrounded by a wide wheatfield. A narrow lane, deep with dust and sand, almost impassable in places, led to the melancholy old pile, which we found even more dilapidated than San Antonio. It is little more than a heap of adobe, and the rent and sundered walls show plainly the agency of the earthquake—the deadly foe of the California missions. The winter rains have wrought havoc with the unroofed walls; only one or two window openings remain and the outlines of a single doorway may still be seen. The most striking feature is the row of twenty square filleted pillars gleaming with white plaster, the corners striped with still brilliant red. These formed a long arcade from which there must have been a glorious view of wooded valley and rugged hills when the good old padres conned their prayers in its shady seclusion. There is hardly enough to give an adequate idea of the plan of the structure when at its best—little is left of the church except its foundation, but it seems to have been quite unique in design. The old tiles that once formed the roof are piled near by—but there is little hope that they will ever be used in the restoration of La Purisima Concepcion. About thirty years ago Helen Hunt Jackson visited the mission and found the dormitory building standing and used as a sheep-fold. The church then showed traces of its ancient decorations and the pulpit and altar rail were still in place, though in sad disrepair. The condition of the ruin to-day shows how rapid has been its decay since that time and it is safe to say that unless something is done to protect it, all traces will have vanished in another quarter century.

The mission which we visited was not the original La Purisima; of this only a few earthen heaps remain. The date of its foundation was December 8, 1787, and the ceremonies were conducted by Padre Lasuen, who has so many missions to his credit. The success of the new venture was phenomenal—in less than twenty years the population numbered over fifteen hundred and the mission was rich in live stock and other property. This prosperity received a sad check from the great earthquake of 1812, which totally destroyed the buildings, leaving the people homeless at the beginning of an unusually wet and cold winter. Then it was that the original site was abandoned and the erection begun of the buildings which I have described. The Indians were intelligent and industrious and worked hard to rebuild the mission and their homes, which had also been destroyed. An extensive irrigation scheme was devised and carried out, but a series of misfortunes prevented the return of former prosperity. Plague decimated the cattle and sheep, and fire destroyed the neophytes' quarters in 1818. In 1823 the revolt at Santa Barbara spread to Purisima, and several Indians and Spanish soldiers were killed before quiet was restored. Under such depressing influence the population steadily declined and numbered but four hundred at secularization in 1835. After the looting was completed the property was turned back to the church in 1843, but a year later an epidemic of smallpox practically wiped out the scanty remnants of the Indian population. From that time the mission was abandoned and uncared for, gradually falling into ruin, and its melancholy condition to-day is the result of seventy years of decay and neglect.

Leaving Lompoc, we followed the Santa Ynez River for several miles. The road winds among the splendid oaks which overarch it much of the way and finally joins the main highway at the top of Gaviota Pass. It seldom took us out of sight of the river, though in places it rose to a considerable distance above the stream which dashed in shallow rapids over its stony bed. The last few miles were a steady climb, but there was much sylvan beauty along the way—wooded slopes dropped far beneath on one hand and rose high above us on the other. Through occasional openings in the trees we caught long vistas of hills and valleys, now touched with soft blue shadows heralding the approach of evening. From the summit of Gaviota the long winding descent brought us to the broad sweep of the sunset sea, which we followed in the teeth of a high wind to Santa Barbara, where the Arlington afforded a welcome pause to a strenuous day.

Just across the bridge a few miles out of Ventura we noted a sign, "To Nordhoff," and determined to return to Los Angeles by this route. It proved a fortunate choice, the rare beauty of the first twenty miles atoning for some rough running later. For the entire distance we closely followed the Ventura River, a clear, dashing mountain stream bordered by hundreds of splendid oaks whose branches frequently met over our heads. We crossed the stream many times, fording it in a few places, and passed many lovely sylvan glades—ideal spots for picnic or camp. Along the road were water tanks to supply the sprinklers, which kept down the dust during the rainless season, giving added freshness to the cool retreats along this pleasant road. Nordhoff is a lonely little town of two or three hundred people, set down in the giant hills surrounding it on every hand. Four or five miles up the mountainside is Matilija Hot Springs, with a well-appointed resort hotel, a favorite with motorists, who frequently come from Los Angeles to spend the week-end.

Out of Nordhoff we climbed a stiff mountain grade on the road to Santa Paula, which we found another isolated little town at the edge of the hills. From here we pursued a fairly level but rough and sandy road to Saugus, a few miles beyond which we came into the new boulevard leading through Newhall Tunnel to San Fernando. An hour's run took us into the city, just two weeks after our departure, and our odometer indicated that we had covered two thousand miles during that time.

A year later, on our return from the north, we pursued the "Inland Route" by way of Bakersfield and the Tejon Pass. This route has been finally adopted by the State Highway Commission, but at the time of our trip little had been done to improve the road north of Saugus, thirty miles from Los Angeles. It certainly was in need of improvement, as the notes set down in my "log book" testify. Concerning our run between Fresno and Bakersfield I find the following comment:

"A day on rotten roads—hardly a decent mile between the two towns. We followed the line of the Southern Pacific for the entire day over a neglected, sandy trail, with occasional broken-up oiled stretches. Towns on the way were little, lonely, sandy places, unattractive and poorly improved. No state highway completed, though some work was in progress in Kern and Fresno Counties, making several detours necessary—not a mile free from unmerciful jolting."

And here I might remark that had we taken the longer route from Goshen to Delano by the way of Visalia and Portersville, we might have avoided forty miles of the roughest road. The highway is to make this detour; but there was no immediate prospect of building it at the time of our trip, as Tulare County felt too poor to buy the bonds.

For several miles out of Fresno we ran through vineyards and orchards, passing two or three large wineries not far from the road. A narrow belt of grainfields and meadows succeeded, but the country gradually became poorer until we found ourselves in a sandy desert whose only vegetation was a short red grass with barbed needles which stick to one's clothing in an annoying manner.

Maps of California usually show Lake Tulare as a considerable body of water, twenty to thirty miles in diameter, lying a few miles west of the town. They told us at Tulare that the lake had practically disappeared, a good part of its bed now being occupied by wheatfields. Dry weather and the diversion of water for irrigation have been the chief factors in wiping out the lake, which was never much more than a shallow morass.

Beyond Tulare we again came into a sandy, desert-looking country and were astonished to see billboards in one of the little towns offering "bargains in land at one hundred and thirty-five dollars per acre"—to all appearances the country was as barren and unpromising as the Sahara, but no doubt the price included irrigation rights. Along this road we noticed occasional groves of stunted eucalyptus trees, neglected and dying in many instances. It occurred to us that these groves were planted by the concerns which sold stock to Eastern "investors" on representation that the eucalyptus combined all the merits to be found in all the trees of the forest. The fact is that it is not fit for much and the "fly-by-night" concerns disappeared as soon as they had pocketed the cash, leaving their victims to bemoan "another California swindle."

While the country was mostly flat and uninteresting, the scene was varied by the dim ranks of the Sierras far to our left all day long—always dominated by one lone, snow-capped summit rising in solemn majesty above the blue shadows that shrouded the lower ranges. It was Mount Whitney, the highest peak within the limits of the United States, with an altitude of fifteen thousand feet above sea level. A road leads well up the slopes of the mountain and from its termination one may ascend in three hours by an easy trail to the summit, which affords one of the grandest views on the American continent.

In this same vicinity, about twenty-five miles east of Visalia, are Sequoia and General Grant National Parks, each of which has a grove of redwoods, and the former is said to be the most extensive in the state. It has one tree, the General Sherman, which contests with the Grizzly Giant of Mariposa for the honor of being the largest living tree in the world, being eighty feet in circumference one hundred feet from its base. In all there are over three thousand trees in this grove which measure forty-five feet or more in circumference. Both of these parks are easily reached by motor from Visalia.

We reached Bakersfield weary enough to wish for the comforts of Del Monte, but found the New Southern far from the realization of our desires. It was "new" in name only—apparently an old building with furnishings and service far below the California standard for towns like Bakersfield, a live-looking place of nineteen thousand people. It is the center of an oil-producing section and has considerable wholesale trade.

A few miles out of town, on the Tejon route, we found ourselves again in the desert and ploughed through several miles of heavy sand before reaching the hill range to the south. There were no houses or people for many miles, the only sign of civilization being an oil-pumping station near the foothills. We beheld a wide stretch of sandy country, dashed with red and purple grasses and occasional wild flowers. To the south and east lay the mottled hill ranges, half hidden by dun and purple hazes and cloud-swept in places. Before us rose a single snow-capped peak and as we ascended the rough, winding grades of Tejon Pass, we were met by a chilly wind which increased in frigidity and intensity until we found need for all the discarded wraps in the car. Some distance from the foot of the grade we came to Neenach Post Office, which proved only a small country store, and beyond this were long stretches of sandy desert dotted with cacti and scrub cedars and swarming with lizards and horned toads. The cactus blooms lent a pleasing bit of color to the brown monotone of the landscape—myriads of delicate yellow, pink, red, and white flowers guarded by millions of needle-like spines.

The desert road continued for fifty miles—deep sand and rough, broken trails alternating with occasional stretches of easy going over smooth sand packed as hard as cement. As we came to Palmdale, a lonely little town marking the terminus of the railroad, we noted frequent cultivated fields which showed the fertility of this barren desert when irrigated. From Palmdale we proceeded to Saugus through Mint Canyon, since the San Francisquito and Bosquet routes—both shorter—were closed by washouts. We found the state highway completed to Saugus; the village showed many improvements and had a decidedly smarter appearance than two years previously—a result that will no doubt follow in all the little towns when the highway reaches them. Near Saugus we passed over the great Owens River Aqueduct, a near view giving us a better conception of the giant dimensions of the iron and cement tubes carrying the water supply to Los Angeles. From Saugus it is an easy jaunt of thirty miles to Los Angeles over one of the finest boulevards leading into the city.

We agreed that while the trip over the "Inland Route" from Fresno was interesting and well worth doing once, we would not care to repeat it under such conditions except upon actual necessity. When we are ready to go again we hope to find that the new highway has replaced the terrible old trails which served for roads the greater part of the five hundred miles of the run.

In the foregoing paragraphs I have endeavored to give some idea of our earliest run over the Inland Route in the good old days when California roads were in their virgin state. My revised edition would hardly deserve the name if I were to omit reference to the present condition of this now very popular route between Los Angeles and San Francisco, since nearly all of it has been improved and much of it entirely re-routed. To-day (1921) practically a solid paved boulevard extends between the two cities and the run of about five hundred miles may be made in two days with greater ease than in twice the time under old conditions.

For more than three-fourths of the distance the road runs in level, straight stretches, permitting all the speed that any car may be capable of—if the driver is willing to risk his neck and take chances of falling into the clutches of the frequent "speed cop" along the way. In the main it is not a "scenic route"—though one is never out of sight of the mountains. The country is mostly flat and uninteresting—for California—but if it grows too monotonous, Sherman and Grant National Parks and Yosemite are only a few miles off this highway. There are excellent hotels at Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced, Modesto, and Stockton, and very good ones in several smaller places. A modern hotel, the Durant, has also been built recently at Lebec, just beyond the summit near the northern extremity of the ridge. Lake Castaic, near by, is a good-sized body of water, affording opportunity for boating and fishing and there is much wooded country in the vicinity—attractions which will doubtless make the Durant a popular stopping-place for motorists.